Since the CDC and DEA’s implementations to cut pain patients off of opioids and benzodiazepines, we have lost many citizens to suicide or illicit fentanyl overdose deaths. The CDC and DEA have destroyed any quality of life for those suffering with diseases, cancer and other chronic pain conditions. For many of these people, their pain medication is what helped them continue to work and have purpose. Many CPP’s have been force tapered, forced to take drugs like Suboxone which has very bad side effects like severe tooth decay, lidocaine shots, nerve block epidurals and spinal cord stimulators. These options do not have the same effects on pain as prescribed pain medications. Pain patients are forced to submit urine tests and are considered “drug seeking” when they go to the ER for help. Please stop the madness and allow pain patients to gain back their quality of life! Doctors deserve the chance to honor the “do no harm” creed without fear of incarceration when prescribing reasonable amounts of medication.
ABSOLUTELY! Chronic pain patients need to be removed from the equation to stand on their own, separated from addicts and substance abuse patients. Chronic pain patients are NOT addicts nor do they tend to abuse their pain meds. They rely on these meds for quality of life, the same as a diabetic requires insulin or a hypertensive requires bloop pressure meds. NO ONE asks for chronic pain!
Thank you! We didn’t ask for this pain, and we just want quality of life.
And why cant people recieve appropriate pain relief after major surgeries? Ive had 4 and Acetaminophen & Ibuprofen dont cut it. Why are patients in the hospital and after discharge being punished and made to feel like drug seekers after organ removal or cancer surgery?
Also i have suffered from an overactive sympathetic nervous system due to a heart condition. My body is in constant fight or flight mode. I take medication to keep my resting heart rate below 130s. But the adreniline horemones like epinephrine and norepinephrine are still telling my body to be on high alert. If i was not started on a benzodiazepine 25 years ago, i would have ended my life a long time ago. Ive taken the same dose for 25 years, but doctors are being threatened with prescribing these types of medications. This is why people turn to street drugs because FDA thinks it knows better than people who have to live (or choose to die) from conditions like anxiety and pain. And no, SSRIs are not anti-anxiety medications. Not for those with physiological anxiety.
I’m so sorry you had to go through such barbaric treatment! I had to fight for 9 days of extra pain meds after my surgery. Two pharmacy techs tried to refuse me at the pharmacy but I kept insisting. A pharmacist came out and tried to stonewall me as well but I stood my ground and she called up the surgeon to “confirm” the script. While I was waiting, SECURITY (5 of them) came into the pharmacy because I guess I created a “disturbance” by advocating for myself. I introduced myself to all the guards, explained the situation and we all had a good laugh. I had to leave the pharmacy only to be called back 15 minutes later to pick up my medication. My surgeon was LIVID. This horrible treatment HAS TO STOP!
I agree with you on this. If a patient has been taking benzodiazepines as prescribed with no issues, they should be allowed to continue! I also take a benzodiazepine for anxiety and sleep. I have taken opiates concurrent with benzos for 13 years. I have never increased my dosage (I am afraid to ask as they may cut me off). There is no valid reason or scientific data that justifies cutting patients off of medications that improve their quality of life. Early on in my diagnoses journey, I was pushed to take a wide variety of meds like gabapentin, lyrica, Prozac and many others for my pain. NOTHING WORKED. I had to “kick” off one med and start another. It was horrible. I don’t wish this on anyone!
I am a chronic pain patient. My pharmacy i use said they had an audit and the DEA not the specialized Doctors I see for the three tyrpes of arthritis, the degeneration of multiple vertebrae in my spine from the C4 all the way to the SI joints and both hips now. Said I couldn’t take the medication i took in the mornings as well as the different ones i took at night to get three hours of sleep. Plus, I have broken both my feet and have metal in one of them as well as four surgeries on it. Plus had to have bith knees operated on. When i was twenty-eight I had to have one shoulder operated on that has caused extreme limitations to my roght arm. I have had to have neck surgery to replace the C5 with a plate and it is know fused to my C6 and they’re talking about having to operate again and remove the C6 and C7. I can barely walk or use my arms and hands from all of this Plus the fact that I have a severe anti-inflammatory disease that causes extreme swelling in my joints. I dont even take as much of the pain medication the specialist want me to because I don’t want to cause severe damage to my heart or kidneys. I got really angry when a pharmacist said i couldn’t have my medication because of some person who has no idea about any if my health issues. It has caused an increased amount of anxiety because it has also hightened my amount of pain. So, i feel from my personal experience that they need to stay out of what they know absolutely nothing about. Why should i suffer when i have never abused drugs of any kind. I have had maybe three alcoholic drinks when I was in my twenties and never did any illegal drugs of any kind. Plus, I worked everyday in pain until I was in my fifties and started working, as well as paying taxes when I was fifteen. So, I yes. I feel they need to stop acting like we’re drug addicts and go after the criminals they were put in that position to do.
I am so sorry you are having to suffer like this. I hope that our new administration sees these comments and DOES SOMETHING!
Chronic pain patients have been treated horribly, Telling them suboxone is a pain medication and it actually isn’t. Doctors who have been prosecuted for treating their patients with narcotics are in jail, for trying to give them a quality of life. Alaska natives being treated horribly by federally funded Healthcare by Southeast alaska regional health consortium and A.N.M.C refusing to treat peoples pain and trying to force them on Suboxone, These doctors should be prosecuted. Millions of people have or are comittung suicide because they can’t function without pain relief many have been diagnosed with kidney disease for taking only ibuprofen. Treating elders like drug addicts and all native people, Unless they have money. These health consortiums funded by the federal government pick and choose who gets good Healthcare the doctors treat everyone like an addict. Its absolutely ridiculous. But the doctors themselves get excellent pain relief. Ban Suboxone it rots teeth, Ban gabapentin in high dosages it causes dementia. I could go on and on about the horrible health care in Alaska that is federally funded by the government and the idiotic pain doctors who get paid a lot of money to say suboxone is great. Two of them are well known aka pain doctors and they are just plain evil for letting people suffer!! Get the DEA out of healthcare. CDC guidelines need to change!!!
This is heartbreaking. 
i agree the CDC and the DEA need to get out of chronic pain patients’s lives! The maltreatment of indigenous people must stop! We have the lowest life expectancy, highest suicide rates and are in an active genocide.
I strongly agree. I took opioids for 29 yrs without incident for multiple comorbidities causing severe intractable chronic pain. I was doing just fine living on my own for the first time in my life, when a yr-and-a-half ago, my Dr suddenly told me he was going to taper me off the 3 things that helped me survive; opioids, muscle relaxants and benzos. I was told later
that’s a favored combination of addicts. He said he was afraid I’d become addicted!
I’m 74 and haven’t had one problem during these 29 years. They allowed me to get out of bed most days, live a halfway decent quality of life and raise my family. I guess I’m lucky it was a slow taper as I quickly began to lose all of my abilities to take care of myself while my blood pressure went completely out of control, even taking 5 drugs for it.
It was almost a year ago when I was literally on my last legs and forced to call my kids for help after I briefly lost consciousness and the use of my right arm. They eventually helped me get into bed and were positive my arm just fell asleep even though I told them I was certain it had not. I didn’t tell them I thought and hoped I was going to die that night.
Obviously I didn’t, but when they checked on me the next day, I had had a stroke and couldn’t get out of bed. I truly wanted to die and refused to go to the ER, but I couldn’t say no to them when they called an ambulance and forced me to go. My diagnoses besides the fortunately mild stroke, was “pain crisis” and “failure to thrive.” It finally forced me into a wheelchair, and I’ve been in assisted living after a month in skilled nursing and PT to help me gain some strength. I’m humiliated, in pain, lonely and miserable.
On top of all of that, now I’m worried because I’m quickly using up my savings for this unbelievably expensive “living.” I don’t know what I’m going to do when it’s gone.
I would have been just fine if they had continued to treat my pain. I can’t help being bitter.
I want to thank the CDC, DEA, PROP and our uncaring elected officials for the way I’m living the final days of my life. Forgive me Lord, but I can’t help hoping that they find themselves in my shoes someday. I hate to think of how many people they’ve killed and tortured through their governmentally imposed brutality. We did nothing wrong in our lives to deserve this inhumane treatment.
I am so sorry you have to go through this! I’m 50 and have been on the same trio of meds as you with no issues (never rocked the boat) and am now being force tapered off two of my meds in order to keep the opiate that I have had the exact same prescription for for 15 years. This is beyond inhumane it is BARBARIC how you are being treated!
When I was three years old, I watch my seven-year-old brother jump off a porch onto a flag pole that went through his head. I had reoccurring nightmares for 11 years. I was accused of throwing fits when I was actually having anxiety attacks I would get spanked every time. My mother blamed me for his death for most of my life. Childhood trauma has caused my anxiety to be so bad that I will vomit and pass out, or I will blackout completely and not remember anything for five or six hours. But when you say anxiety to a doctor these days, they dismiss you and say it’s depression and put you on antidepressants, which makes you suicidal. They say anxiety and depression go hand-in-hand. I’ve never been depressed. I’ve only always had anxiety. Being in the position that I am in right now, I can barely hold down my job. I can barely walk into a convenience store. I hate sitting at a red light in my car. I have been Diagnosed with PTSD, OCD, GAD, and Stockholm syndrome. The DEA has doctors so scared that they will not prescribe any kind of narcotic whatsoever that will help people like me. I honestly believe that death would be easier than the crippling anxiety that I have on a daily basis.
My heart breaks for you. We need this barbaric treatment to change! Anxiety is VERY real!